For those of you who do not know such things, Firestorm is a superhero with the power to transmute nonliving matter from one type of matter to another. So, for example, he can turn oxygen into iron, or lead into gold, or helium into plutonium, and so forth. Note that his power is not limited only to base elements, but indeed to more complex molecules. He’s not really limited in terms of scale when it comes to this power. (As an afterthought, he can also fly and shoot “nuclear blasts” at his enemies.)

Now, the more cunning among you may have noticed that this makes Firestorm, at the very least, a ridiculously powerful demigod, one of the most powerful superheroes imaginable. So you would think that his rogues’ gallery would compose some of the most fearsome villains ever created. Right? Right?

First up, let us consider the Enforcer – a character which is actually two characters, each wearing the exact same suit of armor. (This despite the fact that the first one is a big, brawny guy, and the other is a slender woman.) Apparently it’s a very form-fitting suit of armor. So, let’s see – it’s got boot-jets, and a laser gun, and super-strength. It’s maybe a bit generic, but as super-suits of armor go, it’s not bad.

But Firestorm can turn it into talcum powder with a thought whenever he feels like it.

Now the Hyena is just kind of depressing. First off, the Hyena is a woman who turns into a male hyena monster, which is, well, definitely a new spin on the were-monster stereotype, to say the least. And note that even though this naked were-monster is male, we’re still not allowed to see so much as a nipple. And yes, the Hyena is of course completely outmatched by Firestorm in every possible way.

But what’s really depressing now is that the Hyena has become DC’s token Villain You Can Kill Off. The Hyena has died, by my count, three times in the last decade. I have no idea if any of them were this particular Hyena. Maybe the whole Hyena curse or disease or whatever it is nowadays is transmissible, and when you get bitten by a Hyena, you become a Hyena (and thus a third-rate supervillain, good enough to be killed by Jason Todd or Deadshot, probably not so good to appear as a threat in The All-New Atom).

Also: he/she/it is presenting. And that is just wrong.

So, let me get this straight: Her name is Silver Deer. She is a Native American supervillainess. Her powers are turning into spirit animals and super-gambling?

If her weakness turns out to be liquor, how wrong would that be?

And again: turning into spirit animals and magically affecting games of chance versus “I can convert the air above you into giant rocks” is not a good matchup.

Now, Slipknot is interesting, because I mostly like the costume (that noose motif on the mask is cool, admit it) and the gimmick. He’d probably make a good Batman villain, the sort who shows up for one issue of Detective Comics when Alan Grant was writing and get his ass handed to him after a decent fight drawn by Jim Aparo.

But he is going up against Firestorm. Firestorm’s handle is “the Nuclear Man.” Slipknot’s handle is “the guy who’s really good with rope.” I don’t care if it’s fancy super-rope that Slipknot treated with fancy super-chemicals; Firestorm can still turn it into a puff of nitrogen at will.

Later, Slipknot got his arm blown off in an issue of Suicide Squad, but managed to survive. We know this because he showed up (with one arm) in Identity Crisis, as a prisoner who had taken up the worship of Kobra, DC’s very own third-rate cult leader supervillain with world-conquering ambitions. Understand that becoming the sworn follower of a lame-ass dictator wannabe with delusions of adequacy was just about the best Slipknot could manage.

His superpower is: he is a fucking furry. Why on earth is he appearing in a Firestorm comic? Ever? Dear god, somebody tell me that Weasel died in an issue of Suicide Squad or something. Weasel is the sort of pathetic supervillain that you actively wish Geoff Johns would kill off. That’s how bad he is.

Firestorm’s rogues’ gallery proves one of three things:
1) He’s an underachiever and is afraid to tackle tougher foes
2) He’s a dick who enjoys toying with weak opponents (oh no you tied me up I’m in trouble even though I can fly and turn your rope into whiskey)
3) He’s a complete idiot

The chief weakness of Firestorm is that the “driver” of the matrix has to understand the inner workings of whatever they are converting matter into. Hence the fact that the driver has always been the dumb as rocks college student (I’m looking at you Ronnie Raymond).

Now if Prof Stein had been the only part of the matrix to being with… then short of DC cosmics, nothing should have stopped him.

Re: The women who turns into a Male Were-Hyena. Makes perfect sense that they would make that mistake. See, female hyena’s have a massive enlarged clitoris, resembling an erect penis , which they use to go around raping other hyenas for dominance. Someone probably saw a women transform into a walking harry hyena-monster with a huge boner, and thought she had turned into a guy.

Sad aside: Most hyena childbirth results in the death of the mother, combining the worst parts of having a child and passing a kidney stone.

Maybe Slipknot can form a support group with Iron Man’s Whiplash, for Overshooting Villains.

Didn’t Scans_Daily cover some of these guys? The link to that post seems to be down.

Blake: The reason that post is gone is because all of my scans_daily posts over the years got nuked when I got banned from Livejournal. I’m going to start reproducing the content gradually here, because I put a lot of work into collecting and tweaking the images and writing the commentary.

Rian: Any card for Weasel should simply say “If you recruit Weasel, you lose the game.” Because you would deserve to.

I was gonna make the Hyena comment too but now I don’t have to! I saw nothing that indicated ‘male’ other than the half-version not having standard Comics-Issued Giant Breasts (henceforth known as the CIBGs). Which puts it squarely in the minority.

I was reading the wikipedia article on Hyena… So apparently one of Firestorms weaknesses is close melee combat. See he has trouble controling the radius and extent of his “atomic transformations”. Still pretty weak sauce if you ask me.

He sure “fights” a lot of critters. Oh, critters and perverts, because Slipknot really does not need nipple cut-outs on his costume. Firestorm’s a bit of a nancy-boy who should be on the lookout for some SPCA agents on his tail.

Required correction: Jerry Ordway had nothing to do with creating Firestorm. Gerry Conway, on the other hand, was Firestorm’s (and pretty much all of these lame-o villains) creator.

And yes, the Hyena curse was transferable via the traditional for were-s scratch/bite that breaks the skin route. Firestorm was infected at one point. And the reason the Hyenas were male? Because they were were-hyenas and “were” means male or man. Thus why it was always amusing to see Marvel character Tigra referred to as a “were-woman”, given she was very female in both physical forms.

Oh, and Firestorm’s powerset also included the ability to be intangible, so none of the physical fighter types should’ve been able to touch him.

Only in his league villain I recall from the Conway years (Ostrander, as I recalled, upped the ante on his choice of villains) was Tokamak, who had similar but greater powers as well as a mind-controlled Firehawk (who he’d also created) on his side.

So, what kind of a character would make a good villain for Firestorm, given how powerful he is? The best I could come up with(perhaps because I’m bankcrupt in terms of imagination) is someone with supernatural abilities, as they’d be working to a different set of rules from Firestorm.

Andrew – I think the joke was that Silver Deer embodies so many stereotypes that it’s as if the writers just wanted to slap a bunch of lame First Nations references into a character (I wanted to cry when I saw she had control over games of chance). As such, Bird was commenting that if they gave her a stereotypical weakness of native Americans (alcohol), it’d be the lowest they could go with an already embarrassing character.

Thing is, Hyena would be fine if he were up against, say, Green Arrow. Or Batman. There’s a potential scaryness/creepiness factor there, but not vs. Firestorm. And apparently there were two Hyenas and one was male (the female one’s shrink). Both are dead now though.

i love this character, its one of my favorites (green lantern, the flash, and the boy scout), i used to watch the justice league series from 80’s if u ask me, this is an underrated character, yeah his enemies are pretty stupid, thats why his comics didnt last much time. But i think its more writer’s fault than of this gr8 character, JLA must have the best 7 Firestorm, Superman, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, The Flash, Batman, Martian Manhunter)

[…] The other way out of the “too powerful” trap is to up the scale and use the character in cosmic stories – see Green Lantern or Thor, for example. But Firestorm isn’t any good for this because he’s too grounded, because Firestorm’s weakness is that he’s too stupid to use his powers effectively, because understanding the elemental composition of matter is actually tricky. (At least, this is the case of the Ronnie Raymond incarnation, who seems to be the pre-eminent version of the character – even though I would argue the Jason Rusch version is superior.) It’s the sort of weakness that’s simultaneously a really clever idea and a really bad idea, since it’s original but also keeps Firestorm out of truly cosmic stories (because he’s a dummy) and instead fighting useless twats like these. […]

I do find it interesting that when I was a kid, I never noticed how many Firestorm villains were A) chicks and B) useless. I mean, I noticed the chick part, but at the time, I thought it was cool, because evil females were underrepresented in my eyes. But…yeah, even with Killer Frost, there’s that whole skanky sexual tension thing going on. Way to crap on my childhood, Chris.

What ‘s with you & KILLING lame villains? Try giving them a chance & see what could make them interesting! Hell hyenas are some of the most fascinating creatures on earth. They have a sense of family & caring for their cubs that’s outstanding & everyone follows the momma!
What Firestorm really needs is a counterbalance to his powers , what could harm his body if he abuses them, that should do it!

[…] Finally, Lil’ Russell Burbage sent me a link to a derogatory blog posting entitled, “There is ‘lame,’ and then there are Firestorm villains.” This was posted back in 2008, but is still worth a read. Some items I actively disagree with, while some others I have a hard time arguing against. If you feel like reading someone slam on Firestorm’s rogue gallery, click here. […]

Note that female hyenas do have a pseudopenis, and can be difficult to distinguish from the males. So a woman turning into a masculine creature, complete with the proper anatomy, might not be as strange as it first appears.